|
Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Apr 9, 2017 12:23:15 GMT 12
WOW!!! Now that is absolutely, fabulously marvelous!!
I'm jealous.
|
|
|
Post by Mustang51 on Apr 10, 2017 7:54:26 GMT 12
Very nice indeed.......
|
|
|
Post by harrysone on Apr 10, 2017 19:25:18 GMT 12
I wasn't prepared to let this one deteriorate too much, it cost something like $200 back in '96 just to buy all the donor kits. She's a one off, it's not quite right in a couple of places, I have fixed the tailplane span but it still has the splayed out engines of the Sunderland, Sandringham and Solent III but George Bolt fixed that on Solent IV, engines were aligned with the slipstream...I didn't know that when I first built the model
|
|
|
Post by Dave Homewood on Apr 10, 2017 22:22:43 GMT 12
Do you mean George Bolt was influential on the actual design of the Mk. IV as such before they were built?
|
|
|
Post by harrysone on Apr 10, 2017 22:35:34 GMT 12
Yep, it was in response to the Sandringham 'New Zealand' incident with ZK-AME and overheating engines due to their lack of cooling (to some rear cylinders as they weren't square on to the slipstream. Subsequently George Bolt (then head of engineering with TEAL), saw to it that the New Solent IVs being built were modified on the production line to have engines square on to slipstream.
Funny thing is that the outward splayed engines were the result of Shorts putting a triangular wedge in the wing root of the original Sunderland prototype to move the centre of effort further aft (on the shared Short C-Class wing), when they dropped the planned 37mm canon in the nose of that aircraft
By all accounts the Mk IV Solents were quite a different aircraft to the earlier Mk III they could fly faster and about 1/3 further on Hercules engines of a type that had just recently been declassified by the UK MOD
|
|
|
Post by Dave Homewood on Apr 10, 2017 23:25:59 GMT 12
Thanks Harry. I knew of the redesign to align the engines but didn't realise that came from Bolt and TEAL, I assumed it was a Short Brothers innovation. Good stuff.
|
|
|
Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Apr 10, 2017 23:27:58 GMT 12
All of the earlier Solents (and the military Seafords they were derived from) used the 600-series Hercules engines.
My understanding is that it was George Bolt who persuaded the British Ministry of Defence to declassify the more powerful 700-series Hercules engines for civil use. I guess he put conditions on things and the British really wanted to sell Solents to TEAL. Naturally, civil versions of the Bristol Freighter also benefitted from being able to use 700-series Hercules engines and it didn't take long for Bristol to start fitting them to the Freighters.
In the book “Flying Boats and Amphibians since 1945” by David Oliver, there is an interesting account from Aquila Airways' chief pilot, Captain Doug Pearson, about how superior the Solent Mk.4 flying-boats were to the earlier Solent Mk.2 and Mk.3 'boats. Aquila operated all three marks of Solent after they purchased SH.1556 (ZK-AML) and SH.1558 (ZK-AMN) from TEAL when they finished flying the trans-Tasman routes.
|
|
|
Post by harrysone on Jul 17, 2017 12:07:16 GMT 12
period photo??? ZK-AML about to be hauled up the ramp (beaching gear installed) in Mechanics Bay on a foggy day solent by Harry Follas, on Flickr
|
|
|
Post by Dave Homewood on Jul 17, 2017 13:40:20 GMT 12
Very nice!
|
|
|
Post by johnnyfalcon on Jul 17, 2017 14:05:06 GMT 12
Who's a clever boy??
|
|
|
Post by harrysone on Jul 17, 2017 14:21:13 GMT 12
its all in the software
|
|
|
Post by camtech on Jul 17, 2017 14:34:15 GMT 12
Put some weathering on the aircraft and you wouldn't be able to pick it.
|
|
|
Post by kiwiduster1 on Jul 17, 2017 14:53:03 GMT 12
Lovely. Pity the earlier pics have now gone. Bugger PB.
|
|
|
Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Jul 17, 2017 15:49:18 GMT 12
Lovely. Pity the earlier pics have now gone. Bugger PB. I can still see the earlier pics....even when I refresh the page to make sure they aren't simply cached by my computer.
|
|
|
Post by harrysone on Jul 17, 2017 16:00:33 GMT 12
interesting, because I closed my account!
|
|
|
Post by harrysone on Jul 17, 2017 16:12:53 GMT 12
|
|
|
Post by harrysone on Jul 17, 2017 16:18:12 GMT 12
|
|
|
Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Jul 17, 2017 16:41:57 GMT 12
I can still see your entire library of photographs at PhotoBucket even though you say you deleted your account. • harrysone's BucketI can even open any individual photograph at your account.
|
|
|
Post by harrysone on Jul 17, 2017 17:10:46 GMT 12
interesting...I can still log into it! The Account says that it will be deleted on 07/15...well that date has come and gone!
|
|
|
Post by davidd on Jul 17, 2017 17:11:58 GMT 12
After reading up all the information I have to hand on Sunderlands, Solents, etc, I can find no evidence that TEAL's four Mk. 4s ever had their engines mounted at a different angle to those mounted in all the other Solents, and earlier Sunderlands; even the giant Shetland looks as though it also mounted canted-out engines. It is perfectly true that George Bolt severely criticised the installation of the P&W Twin Wasps in TEAL's Sandringhams, but these were soon modified in Australia by QANTAS, and further work was carried out on them later by TEAL to convert them to allegedly quite reliable units. Apparently the BOAC Sandringhams gave fairly reliable service, and TEAL also operated its four aircraft for some four years without too much further trouble. Interestingly the RNZAF's Sunderland 5s operated quite successfully for many years with identical engines and similar props, although it is possible that there were subtle differences in the engine cowlings. It is also intriguing that TEAL insisted that the conditions encountered on regular summer services flown by the Sandringhams over the Tasman Sea should be regarded as equivalent to operating in a tropical climate, and reckoned that the certification of the Sandringhams had all been conducted during the northern winter. It is probably pertinent to point out that RNZAF Sunderlands would be flown on most occasions at weights considerably less than would be normal on the commercial Sandringhams over the Tasman, which typically took off at near maximum gross weight of 60,000 pounds. Nevertheless, there was still something not quite right with the Twin Wasp installation on the Sandringhams, and it is possible that the mods developed for these aircraft by QANTAS and TEAL ended up being incorporated in the later RNZAF aircraft. Can anybody provide a plan photograph of a Solent 4 clearly showing the engine angles as incontrovertible proof of the non-splayed engines on this model? Is it just a myth, or have I missed something? It must be easy enough to detect this by simply looking at the example at MoTaT. The story has been repeated for many years, but is it true? The very detailed Putnam's book on the aircraft of Shorts (by C H Barnes) makes no mention of this in the section on the TEAL boats, and it would have been quite a major engineering change from all previous Solents. The reason usually given for the splayed-out mounting of engines on the later Short flying boats (from Sunderland onwards) was simply that this was due to increasing the sweep back of the wings, due to CoG considerations, which is perfectly true. However it is also quite likely that this type of configuration would also assist in flying these aircraft should one of the engines fail, at the expense of a small speed penalty speed due to the angled-out engines. The Shorts monoplane flying boats as well as the Junkers 52/3m were the best know examples of this type of engine configuration. David D
|
|